I’m sitting here waiting for my newspaper to arrive. I’m a bit irritated because it is late but also find this to be an interesting exercise on customer service in the world of social media. Most of us work someplace that provides products or services so making our customers happy is important. Of course, we all know mistakes happen so I hate when people blast a company because of one mistake. This goes double for those that are better known in social media who are maybe abusing their power.

On the other hand, it can be good to point out problems as it can help companies change or at least alert others to the problem.  In our case, we get the paper every Sunday but 2 or 3 weeks ago, it didn’t show. My wife emailed them, they replied back right away and we got our paper in about an hour. In this case, I’m not going to blast the Huntsville Times. It was a small mistake by the carrier and the Huntsville times did the right thing to correct it.

However, today, my paper didn’t show again.  Like last time, my wife sent an email about  9:09am.  We didn’t get an email back this time, so she called at 9:27am where the lady said we would get it in about an hour. It was a little bothersome that it happened twice in a month but still, these things happen.

About 9:43 I sent out this tweet:

http://twitter.com/burhop/statuses/11197076474

I was a bit grouchy (cable was flakey too) and immediately starting thinking of people that whine on twitter. People do this on twitter and Facebook and venting can make people feel better. I think the trick for Social Media managers is knowing when someone is venting and when a real problem is out there and needs a response.

After 10am, my wife’s email was replied to and said we would get the paper this morning. This is later than last time but my wife had also called so I assumed the carrier had already been alerted. For companies getting involved with social media, do you coordinate inputs from all places? I’m guessing the phone person and the email person didn’t know they were both replying. Companies need to go even beyond this… are the complaints being sent out via blogs, Twitter, Facebook being linked up with the complains being emailed or telephoned?

At 11:38 we still had no paper I sent out this tweet:

http://twitter.com/burhop/statuses/11201943053

Should the Huntsville Times have replied to my tweet?  Probably.  I’m clearly becoming irritated and it’s clearly their fault. On the other hand, let’s be fair.  Newspapers are struggling and hiring a fulltime person to man the HSVTimes twitter address 24/7/7 can be costly.

At 12:00, I decided to vent on my blog (Ta da!) .  The phone call saying we would get the paper in an hour and the email saying we would get it this morning were both expired.  I didn’t want to just vent, I wanted to think a bit deeper on the problem and how it relates to similar problems my company and other companies might face.

Clearly, a company saying they will do something to fix a problem and then not actually doing that is going to magnify customer dissatisfaction.  I missed a newspaper today. It’s hardly the end of the world. It would take me 10 minutes to run out to the store and get one.  Rather I sit here going out of my way to blog about it. I find that interesting.

A little after 12:00pm the phone rang. It was the Huntsville Times checking that we got our paper. My wife told them “no, we did not”.  The woman from the Huntsville times said the carriers were running late because of the storm.  That might be but our neighbors got their papers. She also said redelivery was another department.

One of the rules for social media is to quickly admit to mistakes. I think if the Huntsville Times had sent out a tweet or Facebook status saying, “Sorry, we are running late today because of the storm” or “lots of papers washed away. Redeliveries are running slow” I’d probably be more understanding. If the person that called had been aware of the problems in the field, that would have helped too.

So, I’m wondering now, is my problem a fluke or does this happen to a lot of Huntsville Time customers?  Should they (and other companies by extension) be more involved in social media to improve customer service and reduce dissatisfaction?  If so, how do you do this on a small budget? We all know newspapers are struggling now.   How do you coordinate communication with customers that may be talking on many different channels (email, phone, twitter and blogs)?

I wish I had answers. All I know is that it is 1:00pm now and I still don’t have a paper and I have no idea why.

Update: My wife called back at 2:30.  The Huntsville Times was now closed and we were told to call back tomorrow.

Update: My wife sent an email to the publisher after it was clear we wouldn’t get a paper today. She got a reply Sunday evening saying they will credit us for four weeks delivery and are looking into the problem and will get back to her. She thought that seemed fair.

Update: Monday morning.  My son was heading to school and found a Sunday paper.  Right after that, my wife got a call from the Huntsville Times. The gentleman had personally delivered the paper earlier that morning.  They also followed up on twitter.

http://twitter.com/HsvTimes/statuses/11250843335

I replied back with this:

http://twitter.com/burhop/statuses/11252697730

It appears we have generated more attention that we really deserve but it is nice to see how hard the Huntsville Times is trying.

Here are some predictions for 2010.  Check my last blog and my 2009 predictions for some background information.

I don’t see the end of this social media explosion coming anytime soon. Maybe there will be a slowdown in a few apps like MySpace and maybe twitter but at the same time, I think it will grow into new areas. A question I like to ask myself is what social things do people like to do when they are together? What do they do with family or friends or work associates? For example, they might get together with family to talk. They might go shopping together. They might play a game. If you go way back, they meet up to go kill a mastodon or tiger. That brings me to my first thought:

Social gaming will be the new trend

I think the booms in social media will be in the technologies that brings any of these “real life” experiences and feelings to geographically dispersed groups of people. Want to get together with other hunters to kill mastodons? How about WoW? More of a gatherer than a hunter, try Farm Town and put your farm right next to your old college roommate’s field. I’m surprised there is no game based on politics. Social media apps bring us together but its some of the social gaming activities that will give us something to do.

Realtime and social search

The thing I like about twitter is that many of the folks I follow only tweet the good links. Its like a search engine anticipating my needs. So, its no wonder the search engines are starting to tap into the social media trend giving both more real time results and indexing what is being placed on social networks.

As a result, start expecting anyone that is interested in a high search engine ranking to start investing more time in social media. I’m hoping this will mean that companies will start putting out more interesting and useful content that are likely to get retweeted and reposted but I expect spammers to be trying to game this system as well

Tablet computing Specializes

My iPhone and my attempt to touch the screen of a Kindle when I first saw one (it didn’t work) have me thinking that touch screen tablets might finally become main stream. However, we have had a lot of false starts on this in the past. So, I’m saying its just more meager growth even with Apple hitting the domain. Still, the Netbooks, kindles, the new Nook and even the Google OS suggest we’ll have a lot more variety of device types next year but still a lot without touch screens.

Cloud computing

This is such a huge area when everyone drawing different lines around it that one could probably justify any prediction about it. I love Google and having all my data “in the cloud” but there are some practical things that I think will bog it down.

First, data protection and data security are a big issue. No one wants to lose their data from a server crash or fire or whatever. Secondly, so many companies are seriously concerned about data security that letting it outside the firewall is going to be a hard sell.

Secondly, network speed and latency makes pushing large amounts of data around painful. So, many of today’s applications need to be re-engineered to make better use of show data high latency cloud technologies. That will take time too.

I was watching the latest talk on Balmer and the example he made of the guy with the Apple iPhone. For Balmer, he is at war with Apple. What they do is bad and what we do is good. I know people that won’t talk to me because that dialog might give me some credibility. It’s a view that works for a lot of people.

For me, I’ve always had a problem demonizing competitors. Now that does not mean I don’t like competition. I love it! I think it is what makes great products. However, for me it’s more like football. I’m a Florida Gator and I love when we outsmart, outwork, or generally crush the competition.

At the same time, many of the fans of these other teams are my friends. I even have kids attending other SEC schools.  I love to watch a talented player on the other team, and have no problem acknowledging when they do something I think is pretty smart. It makes it better when we beat them

When it comes to Social Media, I’ve kept to this “Football” analogy. If a competitor has a conference coming up, I’ll retweet it just because I know some of their customers are following me and its useful for them. If one of their employees says something smart in a blog, I’ll repost it. Why? Because, I want to cater to the smart customers. Because, I think the real competition is on the field with the technology not in some poll that can be greatly determined by what happens off the field.

So how do you view your competitors? Does social media change things?

Family room during March Madness

If you know me or watch my twitter, you know I’m a big basketball fan.  My love is equal to football, maybe even more so because my wife and daughter prefer basketball.  Of course, I’m a Gator and big on Billy Donovan but my Alabama readers shouldn’t close this page just yet.  My son is at Auburn, my daughter is starting at the University of Alabama this fall and I know something about Alabama’s new coach.

When Anthony Grant left Donovan’s staff to become a head coach VCU my family and I watched him there.  Grant helped Florida get to where it is so we were eager to see what he could do on his own.  Beyond the success in his own conference, beating Duke and getting knocked out in two very close NCAA games showed he could coach the game.

In high school, my daughter hung out with me and my wife a lot during the times of the oh-fours’s.   When Florida played Auburn a couple years ago, my oldest son, a freshman at the time, helped make a 3D poster of Joakim Noah for my daughter.  At the end of the game, Noah went out of his way to sign it for her.  Today, she follows the Chicago Bulls closely thanks to that game and probably knows more about the NBA and latest trades than I do. She is very serious about basketball.

The tricky part for her was late last year where my daughter became a Nation Merit Semi-Finalist.   Many schools compete for national merit finalists (which my daughter now is). While a good basketball team is secondary in picking a school, it would certainly be a nice thing to have in her case.  Plus she was already a Gator fan thanks to her dad. However, Alabama offered her one of their top scholarships and she eventually decided to go there (despite the so-so basketball tradition).  

Now, with Anthony Grant coming to the University of Alabama, we’ve ended up in a very good situation.  Alabama seems serious about becoming a real basketball school. Secondly, they have picked a coach that has been around the process of taking a Football school and making it a dual sports school. Lastly, for my family, its a coach we know and follow and respect.

Excellent work, Alabama  athletic department!  With respect to my Gator heritage and son at Auburn,  Roll Tide!

P.S. My daughter is majoring in either journalism/PR or education.  Someone in the athletic department needs to get her involved.

Zach Burhop and Billy Donovan

Anyone that follows me on twitter likely knows I’m a big coffee drinker.  I couldn’t wait until they started building Starbucks in my little corner of Alabama.  I used to have a credit card that gave money back for my kids education until Starbucks came up with the Duetto card that gave money for coffee (they say you start ignoring your family when you get addicted ).  I also visit most of the coffee houses in my area. Will this change?   Maybe.  More on that later.

The picture above is of my newest toy, a Tassimo coffee maker from Bosch. You will see a rack in the back of cartridges, mostly coffee but also tea, hot chocolate, and milk. It creates a single cup of coffee from one of these cartridges in about 60 seconds.

Each disk has a bar code that says what temperature, amount of water, and flow rate should be used for the coffee, expresso or other drink.  For the engineers and tech geeks like me, check out Hacking the Tassimo Part 1 and Part 2 for the details of the bar codes.

Here is what I’m so keen on this thing (other than it being a cool gadget):

1. It makes REALLY good coffee. It surprised me how good.
2. It is a single cup.  My house is high traffic with 3 older kids. Five of us plus friends and we all like different types of coffeee (plus, my daughter likes hot chocolate and my wife likes tea)
3. No mess. Sometimes you have to wipe it down because of a coffee splash but still much easier than a regular coffee pot.
4. There are many different coffee options.  The Starbucks tastes a lot like what I get at Starbucks.

The one thing I don’t like about Starbucks is the difficulty of using the Wifi. I overlook it for the coffee and ambience.   The way it works is this… you get a starbucks card, register it, and use it once a month. Then you get a login to the ATT Wifi. Sounds good but it isn’t.  You see I use my Duetto card which I can’t use with the Wifi.  So I have to get ANOTHER Starbucks card and buy a little bit with one card and a little bit with the other… crazy. Plus, I usually visit with others like family or friends for work and if they don’t have a card or ATT wifi, its a pain.

Now, with Tassimo, I don’t really need to go for the coffee (Starbucks, I’m still glad I can get Starbucks for my Tassimo).  The other coffee houses have free no-hassle wifi so if you do something like a tweetup, it is easier to go someplace else. Now, the economy sucks.  

Local Starbucks, I hope you have a plan.  At the very least, start selling Tassimo disks.

I was driving to work the other day, listening to the news about the latest stimulus package when, BAM!, it hit me. Or rather, I hit it…a pot hole.

Now I’m not a politician or an economist so I’m sure this is a stupid idea, but why not fix our roads?  I mean, better roads are something everyone can get behind, right? It’s a local problem. I don’t want to take your money or borrow money against your kids to fix roads in another state. I want them fixed on your street.

It is also a measureable and trackable stimulus package.  For each dollar of stimulus, how many pot holes did we fix?  How many new jobs were created? How much of that money stayed in the US? We could even do metrics or competition between states and counties. If you waist your road money on vacations or bonuses we will know.

A friend who is a journalist has a phrase, “Follow the money”.   So let’s follow the money.  We give $1 to the county (or whomever) with the pot holes.  They hire people from the unemployed pool of workers giving the people a salary and medical benefits.  Need flexible hours? There is no bad time to fix roads.  No skills? If you are able bodied, it’s not a problem.  Over qualified?  Math and computer guys, we have a new problem for you called the traveling road crew problem (find the shortest distance between a set of  potholes fixing each pot hole only once).  Sales guys, we need you to negotiate a good deal on equipment.

Local businesses, guess what?  We have a lot of thirsty, hungry people out there fixing the roads.  The need shoes and clothes and good washing machines. Ok, we might be subsidizing the beer industry a bit more than some people like but no plan is perfect. 

Now I’m not saying to make this a total manual effort just to create jobs.  If it makes sense to buy equipment like a dump truck or earth mover, that is fine. We want the most roads fixed for our money. So some of that stimulus dolar goes to buying some equipment from local companies.  

Now some people will say, “hey, a lot of our equipment is from overseas.  We want to help OUR people”. I understand but it’s never that easy (do you know what % of your car is actually American made?) . So, instead of spending stimulus money for the new, amazing pothole fixer from Japan, we send corn or software or something that has at least caused money to cycle through the American economy at least once.

CEO’s, eventually this money will come to you as people buy new cars or dump trucks or baby clothes or start putting money in banks.  It is “trickledown economics” – ok, “trickleup economics” but you get the point.

 So is it just potholes I’m thinking of?  No but it’s an easy metaphor for starting locally. Is this a stupid idea?  I’m sure it is.   At least if it fails to fix the economy our children will have good roads to ride their bicycles.

A lot of communities exists not only because of common interest but because its members can help each other out.  You might keep an eye on each other’s house in your neighborhood.  You might work together to support a school.

I like how technology has brought us to the point where we can form communities that are not location based.  I’m involveded with automotive, Second Life, CAD and professional communities on-line. Many of these people I have never met but the sense of community is just the same.

Sometimes these virtual and real life communities overlap. SWGeek is one of my friends in one of my CAD communities. He is involved with Orangewood Children’s Foundation.  It is an interesting story and you can read more about it on his blog post, “Design for the Future” .

So if you have a few bucks or some space on your own blog or just want to retweet his link above, here’s a place for you to do a good deed for the day. You certainly got to like a place that produces guys like Alex.

In case you haven’t noticed, I use an avatar (cartoon figure) for most of my pictures.  You can even go to the more serious sites like linkedin and find it. If you google “mark burhop”  under images, I don’t even think you will find me there, just my avatar.  Sometimes I get a bit of flack about this…it is hardly professional, right?

Maybe,  maybe not.  In my case, I have a message behind my avatar.  It is time to start thinking about the virtual world.  I don’t mean “Second Life”, “WoW” and other virtual environments although that is included.  I mean all things virtual… virtual product development, virtual architectural design, virtual travel, any real life things you can simulate on a computer.

For businesses, it can save you money.  The CAD industry is based around designing products in a virtual world.  You might say CAM and 3D printing are technologies for taking virtual products into the real world. Testing with a computer simulation (CAE) is much cheaper than building a real life prototype.  

You will hear most universities talk about virtual education and virtual training and I’ve been a part of a number of virtual meetings. How much will businesses save here in travel costs? It is hard to say but it could be substantial.

Even if there is a neutral cost/benefit, virtual technology is still more eco friendly.  The carbon footprint of  virtual products and virtual people are sure to be less than the volume of burnt carbon created flying and driving real me around or building real life prototypes.

One interesting side effect of using an avatar is that it is makes it harder to make judgments about people.  How old  is the person?  Are they disabled?  What color is their skin?  How much do they weigh?  Are they male or female?   In a real life meeting, these are the first things you learn about someone despite being completely unimportant to most discussions. 

Now there is a negative side. You miss out on certain social cues and body language that is so important to effective communication. Some people like to talk face to face. Since we are talking about my static image, a real life picture really isn’t going to help you much here.  The best it will do is give you a hint as to who I am before you have to find me in a croud.

So while being a white, average, middle aged male would not get ME a second look, I’d at least like to provide some token support to those that would prefer not to be judged by their initial appearance.

We established a few posts ago that I am a football expert but did you also know I’m a 3D expert? I can spin 3D CAD models with a flick of my wrist. I fly around Second Life with an avatar. You might say I live in the 3D world. So, when 3D technology meets football, I am THE person to talk about it.

In my case I went to see the BCS title game between the Gators and Sooners in 3D down in Hunstville, Alabama.  Huntsville is at the center of the universe for the SEC and therefore college football.  I was given a set of “Men in Black“  3D glasses to wear ( Note to old people, they are not blue and red anymore, they are clear). I sat in front of a 5000 inch hi-def digital screen with 800 surround sound speakers.  I’m just estimating screen size and number of speakers but it was definitely more than my friends 61 inch LCD and eight speakers (in your face, Bob!).

It was put on at the Rave cinema using technology from 3ality Digital, Sony, and Fox Sports.  Here are my observations and suggestions for any future games:

1. Put your glasses on after you sit down.  DO NOT STAND while watching the show or risk falling into the next row. If you do stand, at least put your drink down.
2. Expect a headache.  I don’t know that this is from the 3D glasses. It might have come from banging my head after those interceptions. In any case, it could have been prevented if the Rave, got their liquor license before the game. 
3. Having the camera on the fields is great!  I felt like I was walking around with Tim Tebow.  I think a few people tried to touch him. One person in a wheelchair may have been healed.
4. The technology is surprisingly good. It was a sharp picture and I had a feeling like I was there. OK, it has it’s glitches like when the camera loses focus and causes the entire crowd to scream in pain from going cross-eyed.  This only happened a few times and most of us were able to walk it off.  I think the problems I did see were 1/3 technology and 2/3 execution (which is good) so lets talk more about that.
5. We had several policemen at the theater. At first, I figured this was normal since it was football in the south and they might not have know the liquor licence was delayed.  I realized later that it was to go after the cell phone users. Phones must be turned off in a theater!  Those darn geeks are always ruining a good game with their PDAs and text message flame wars.
6. Broadcasters do not ask your viewers to text you comments about the experience during the game.  If one of them gets clubbed by the phone police (see above) they will sue you.
7. Cameramen, is this your first time covering football?   Yes, I know there are 24 players on the field but most football fans like to watch the one with the ball. The cuts to the cheerleaders are great, BUT NOT WHILE THE GAME IS BEING PLAYED. Ok, some of this is Oklahoma’s fault with thier hurry offense.
8. More Cameraman suggestions.  The camera on the field between plays or during breaks is good. The camera on the field during the play is bad. I now know why it is so hard to tackle a small back like Demps and Rainey.  It’s hard to see around a 6’6’’ 300 lb lineman to find them.
9. The crowd wanted to know about doing the SuperBowl in 3D. Yes, I hear it is coming.  You should go if you get the chance. Of course some smart aleck in the back wanted to know if it would be the same cameramen (see above).
10. Digital graphics person, Do not make your graphics (score, stats, logo) like they are 10 inches from my face. I get it.  It is 3D and it is cool.  However, I want to watch football.  Imagine you are at a football game focused on something 50 yards away and then have to focus on your cell phone. It takes a second. You don’t have this with 2D TV and I bet you can fix it in 3D by making the graphics show at a greater distance.
11. For the future football players, walk up to the 3D camera pointing. You wouldn’t think having a 20 foot arm coming out of the screen is cool but it is.  In the future, I wonder who will be the first to spit at the camera.
12. For the sound guys doing the production, be sure Michelle is with her friends before starting.  I spent a good part of the game listening to Michelle’s friends calling her name looking for her. Michelle might have also kept her friend form getting drunk and singing “We are the boys of old Florida” off key (that is the end of the 3^rd quarter for non-gator fans). On second thought, just find a better place for the mic.
13. Rave, the price was $25.  Please don’t nickel and dime us to death with $1 raffles. Now don’t get me wrong, the extra attention was nice but I’d rather not be digging through my pockets in a dark theater.  Just let me pay $30, give me some free Nachos or a coke (ok, Rave, you probably have some contract with someone else – complain to them).
14.  At some point, confetti must be thrown in the air for all 3D games.  This is very cool in 3D.  Big Ten teams, this technology is for you when the snow starts.  The SEC and PAC10 can’t compete (unless they start throwing beach sand at the cameras).

Here are a few pictures from the Huntsville tweetup. 

I’ve tagged them with #HSVTWEETUP in Flickr